The Most Important Thing You Can Do This Week

After turning in their first 450,000 signatures the first week in July, workers for Voters First Ohio kept gathering more signatures in case they were short the 385,000 valid signatures needed to qualify the issue for the November ballot. And they were. They have until the end of this week to turn in enough valid signatures to qualify.

Voters First Ohio, in case you don't know, would replace the current, hyper-partisan system of creating legislative and congressional districts in Ohio with a nonpartisan citizens commission operating under guidelines requiring maps to consider compactness, contiguity, keeping communities whole, and competitiveness. It would stop cold the tradition of politicians drawing districts to favor themselves and make challenging them nearly impossible, whether the district is heavily Republican or heavily Democratic.

The Ohio Republican Party really really REALLY doesn't want this on the ballot and if it gets on, they intend to pull out all the stops and every lie they can muster to defeat it. They met in Columbus last week to talk about how much money they'll spend and what lies they'll tell the public about Voters First Ohio. But first we HAVE to get it on the ballot!

Please, if you have not signed, go here and find a place near you to sign:

http://votersfirstohio.com/sign-a-petition/

Or click on this map:

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?viz=MAP&q=select+col3+from+...

In most counties, you can find petitions at Democratic headquarters (This is a nonpartisan issue, but Republicans, realizing that the ace up their sleeve is rigging elections, won't willing give up their unfair edge — even though Republican voters are effectively silenced as well).

Get going! We need your signature now!